Five years after renter ruckus, all say don't go there

Idea dead and gone

Posted: Sunday, February 01, 2009

By BLAKE AUED

Five years ago, Athens-Clarke commissioners thought the only way to keep the city safe from rowdy students who parked on the front lawn or left their trash cans out too long was to keep track of where every renter lived.

As it turns out, they didn't really need rental registration after all. When courts killed off perhaps the most controversial law in Athens history in February 2004, county officials set to work reforming the way they enforce quality-of-life ordinances.

Commissioners say they think it's working. And in contrast to four or six years ago, code violations are such a political non-issue that the lone commissioner still on the board who voted in favor of rental registration says she has no interest in revisiting it - ever.

"We're doing the best we can," Commissioner Kathy Hoard said. "I don't see any need in reopening this discussion, especially with state law being the way it is, and I see no great push to change state law."

The three remaining commissioners who opposed rental registration - David Lynn, George Maxwell and Harry Sims - see it the same way.

"Everybody was so badly bruised by that episode that nobody ever wants to see it or hear about it again," Lynn said.

Newer commissioners also say they have no interest in revisiting rental registration. While eastsiders still complain about renters who don't keep up their property, especially around August and January, the complaints have died down, Commissioner Andy Herod said.

"People feel like the quality-of-life ordinances are better enforced now than they were a few years ago," Herod said.

After the commission initially passed a law in 2003 requiring renters to register with the county government, the state legislature prohibited cities and counties from keeping records on renters and their family relationships with their roommates. The commission passed a new version in 2004. Landlords sued, and a judge ruled in their favor.

"We bungled the whole process," Lynn said. "It alienated half the community and set a (newly elected) commission off on the wrong foot. We gained nothing from it."

Rental registration was supposed to stop more than two or four unrelated people from living together in single- or multi-family neighborhoods, respectively. Instead of attacking the core problem, county officials decided to go after the symptoms - noise complaints, messy yards, illegal parking and other nuisances that come when thousands of students live off-campus in a college town.

Athens-Clarke Manager Alan Reddish blew up the county's code enforcement branch, the marshal's office, in 2004 and reorganized it as the Community Protection Division. In 2005, Mayor Heidi Davison and commissioners sacked a municipal court judge at least partly for not coming down hard enough on quality-of-life scofflaws. They also switched responsibility for prosecuting quality-of-life ordinances from the appointed county attorney to the elected solicitor - who prosecutes misdemeanors - and back to the county attorney.

The changes worked, said Athens-Clarke Auditor John Wolfe, who wrote a report on the marshal's office in 2003 and another on the CPD last year.

The CPD has more manpower and cooperates better with other departments than the marshal's office did, Wolfe said. Marshals investigated only when someone complained, but CPD officers patrol every street in Clarke County at least once a month looking for violations, he said.

"That helps a great deal," he said.

Since the CPD was formed, Sims said he's noticed that his East Athens neighborhood looks better. Yards are neat and junk isn't piled up on lawns like it used to be, he said.

"Especially in the poor areas - people say if it's poor, it must be run-down - our community is kept up well," Sims said. "People take pride in the community."

The improvements in code enforcement have come even as many residents continue to violate the county's definition of family. A judge threw out a law in 2005 barring more than four people from living together in areas zoned for apartments, even if they occupy a single-family home. But in neighborhoods zoned single-family, the two-unrelated limit still stands.

Commissioners who represent in-town neighborhoods near the University of Georgia said they often see evidence of renters who violate that limit; six or eight SUVs parked outside a house every day, for example.

"They're living there, not visiting," Maxwell said. "If you take it to court, you don't have a leg to stand on, so it gets thrown out of court. I don't know what to do about it."

Wolfe's audit found that, of 5,800 code violations the CPD spotted or neighbors reported in the year from April 2007 to March 2008, only 48 were for too many unrelated people living in a house. An officer would have to watch a house nightly for three months to prove that someone slept there for 30 days out of a 90-day period, the standard for violating the definition of family. CPD Administrator John Spagna said he believes the law is widely ignored.

"In no way do I think we're near total compliance," Spagna said. "We're not. There's a lot of it that goes on out there."

Just one or two definition-of-family cases were prosecuted in the past year, county Attorney Bill Berryman said, because proving in court that three or more people are unrelated and living together is almost impossible without a confession. But many renters and landlords, especially out-of-towners, aren't aware of the definition of family, and people will often move out of the house after being warned by a CPD officer, officials said.

"Sometimes, it just takes an investigation or the threat of prosecution to bring about compliance," Berryman said.

Spagna said his division's strategy is to go after the symptoms of overcrowded houses, like littering and parking cars in the front yard. Officers issue citations, but they also talk to residents, send letters and hand out warnings.

"A lot of tenants don't even know this is an ordinance violation," he said. "You have to educate them on the simple things, even litter on your lawn."

And, of course, rather than call the CPD, people can always resolve their disputes over unmowed lawns the old-fashioned way: talking to their neighbors.

"I would recommend that highly to anyone who's having a problem," Hoard said.